Barbara Prack Mc Cormick

In many regions worldwide, horticulture is a soil‐based production system closely tied to small family farmers who often face socio‐economic challenges. In the peri‐urban area of Buenos Aires (Argentina), horticultural soils face significant degradation because of inadequate agricultural practices. At the same time, efforts are underway to design and implement alternative sustainable practices. Evaluating the effect of current and alternative practices on soil quality under controlled conditions is essential for ensuring food security and supporting the livelihoods of family farmers. In this area, family farmers commonly use poultry litter (PL) as a sole nutrient source or combined with mineral fertilizers (MF). Agroecological practices such as crop rotation, intercropping, and diversification with legumes and flowers are also being adopted. This study aimed to assess the effects of fertilization strategies and crop types on the physical, chemical and biological quality of an Aquic Argiudol soil under continuous horticultural use. A 3‐year open field experiment compared the impacts of the fertilization strategies, PL, MF and no fertilization (CRL), and the crop types, vegetables (lettuce, beet and fava beans) and flowers (snapdragon and stock). Treatments were assigned to 4 m ² plots, and soil samples (0–10 cm deep) were collected annually at harvest. Key indicators were monitored, including bulk density, aggregate stability (AS), pH, electrical conductivity, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), extractable phosphorus (EP), basal respiration (BR) and microbial biomass (MCB). Compared to CRL, PL significantly improved ( p < .05) SOC (15.8%), TN (18.0%), BR (53.6%) and MCB (76.4%), but also elevated EP (180.9%) to excessive levels and increased pH. In contrast, MF caused soil acidification. Legume inclusion improved ( p < .05) AS (18.6%) and MCB (31.0%), while reducing the pH (3.7%). These findings highlight the benefits of organic amendments and crop diversification for soil quality in intensive horticultural systems, while also underscoring the need for careful management to address risks such as nutrient accumulation and environmental impacts.

Conservative treatment for invasive bladder cancer (BC) involves a complete transurethral tumor resection combined with chemotherapy (CT) and radiotherapy (RT). The major obstacles of chemo-radiotherapy are the addition of the toxicities of RT and CT, and the recurrence due to RT and CT resistances. The flavonoid Silybin (Sb) inhibits pathways involved in cell survival and resistance mechanisms, therefore the purpose of this paper was to study in vitro and in vivo, the ability of Sb to improve the response to RT, in two murine BC cell lines, with different levels of invasiveness, placing emphasis on radio-sensitivity and pathways involved in radio-resistance and survival. In vitro, Sb radio-sensitized murine invasive cells through the inhibition of RT-induced NF-κB and PI3K pathways, and the increase of oxidative stress, while non-invasive cells did not show to be sensitized. In vivo, Sb improved RT-response and overall survival in invasive murine tumors. Since Sb is already being tested in clinical trials for other urological cancers and it improves RT-response in invasive BC, these results could have translational relevance, supporting further research.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin is the standard treatment for patients with nonmuscle invasive high histological grade bladder cancer. Previously we found that bacillus Calmette-Guérin induces murine bladder cancer MB49 cell death in vitro and in vivo, generating tissue remodeling, which involves the release of fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2. We studied the effect of bacillus Calmette-Guérin treatment on FGF-2 and FGF receptor (FGFR) expression in bladder cancer. In vitro FGF-2 increased MB49 cell proliferation but did not reverse bacillus Calmette-Guérin induced cell death. Increased FGF-2 expression was detected after bacillus Calmette-Guérin treatment. Moreover MB49 cells expressed high FGFR3 levels, which decreased after treatment. Similar results were observed in human T24 bladder cancer cells. In vivo MB49 tumors expressed higher FGFR3 levels than normal urothelium. Tumor FGFR3 decreased after treatment and correlated with tumor growth inhibition in response to bacillus Calmette-Guérin. In a pilot bioassay using 11 human bladder tumors treated ex vivo with bacillus Calmette-Guérin we found a subgroup of 41% of patients in whom FGFR3 was decreased after treatment. Based on bladder cancer murine model results we infer that down-regulation of FGFR3 is a predictive marker of a good response to bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy. The decrease in FGFR3 in response to bacillus Calmette-Guérin occurred not only in a murine model but also in a human bladder cancer cell line and in some patient samples. More patients and increased followup are needed to establish the predictive role of FGFR3 as a marker in human bladder cancer.